Language Hacking

by Limbic on March 1, 2008

As many of you know, after three years in Serbia, I finally decided to start learning the Serbian language. I was extremely lucky to find a truly brilliant teacher to help me*. Additionally, it turns out that the old myth that adults find it very hard to learn languages may be bunk.

I am now interested in the topic of Hacking Foreign Language Learning. I am looking for any tips, tricks and shortcuts one can adopt to speed up language learning.

I was contacted about Edufire, which looks pretty interesting. It offers live video tutoring in 18 languages (with more being added all the time).

I hear that the Rosetta Stone system is superb (pity there is no Serbian) but a bit expensive for most.

xLingo is a nice idea, you “Find Language Exchange partners from around the world to practice and improve your language skills.”

If anyone has any recommendations, please contact me with your ideas.

* My Serbian teacher’s name is Mira and she is highly experienced and uses the latest teaching techniques (this was confirmed by my girlfriend, who is a linguistics expert and university lecturer). She can be contacted by email: mira22 AT eunet DOT yu .

I personally think some time spent one-on-one with a good language tutor is the best (and fastest!) way to learn a language. We recently launched eduFire.com as a service to facilitate these types of interactions. Drop me a line and I’ll hook you up with a complimentary session! 🙂

Hi man.
Good luck with the Serbian…..I am in dire need of a good teacher myself, I find it really hard to motivate myself to learn…I need a teacher to be kicking me arse to do it….and I move to Serbia in 2009!!!!!
(oh the shame of it…my wife being Serbian and I cant speak for shit!)
Does your teacher do any distance learning course?